10 Wrong Grammar Rules Everyone Knows

You thought you learned good grammar back in grade school, but now the overzealous grammar police are making you doubt yourself. Relax. You might not be in the wrong at all. Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images

The hit comes sneakily.

Maybe you're going over a report with a colleague. Maybe your English teacher hands you back your five-paragraph essay on the theme of man versus nature in "The Old Man and the Sea." Maybe you're just trying to have a nice, pleasant conversation with a near stranger who asks you how you're doing.

And then it happens.

"Oops," your colleague says, voice dripping with satisfaction. "It looks like you started a few sentences with conjunctions. You know that's not correct, right?"

"DELETE PASSIVE VOICE," shouts your teacher in red at the top of your essay.

"Oh, you mean you're 'well,' not 'good,'" the stranger says.

How dare all of them. How does anyone remember all these obnoxious grammar edicts?

Here's a trick: Ignore them. The three examples we just gave actually are not rules at all.

Join us as we take a tour of the 10 grammar rules everyone knows -- but are actually completely bogus.